D&D 5E (2014) 2024 D&D is 2014 D&D with 4E sprinkled on top

[Micah Sweet]

it's a shame that it's not 'my skill makes it so that any blade i wield is as dangerous as the blade of valor'

It could be, that's just (probably) an indicator of supernatural power.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean in other cough*better*cough systems, the +hit for a pure martial is generally going to be much much higher, so their attacks are more dangerous than some random with a nice sword.

Yeah. I've never been happy with the "equal attack bonuses for all classes" thing WotC instituted.

 

[I'm A Banana]

it's a shame that it's not 'my skill makes it so that any blade i wield is as dangerous as the blade of valor'

I think this would be a fine fiction, especially when you hit Tier 4 and are legit a hero of legend anyway.

 

[Page]

This is a great conversation, and I've learned a lot from it. I ignored 4th Edition, but now I want to try it out.

 

[Hussar]

Isn’t the whole “legendary weapon” schtick kinda what the Kensai, in various incarnations, dances around? Heck even the Holy Avenger thing for paladins was very often aspirational in play. Do this quest and you get a special horse. Do that quest and you’ll get a holy avenger.

Dress that up as a fighter subclass and I think you might go a long way towards achieving that.

Although it would be hard to make that distinct from Eldritch knight which walks a very similar line.

After all, an EK with certain spells tends to look a lot like out “gear knight”. Or, really, a Hexblade warlock often fills the same niche.

It’s not an easy needle to thread.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

While the game engine can accomodate a pretty wide swath of character types and associated origins, I don't think it's possible for all of those types to exist within one setting. Some tastes (like what @Scribe and @EzekielRaiden are espousing, as an example) are simply going to be mutually contradictory and impossible to rectify.

I mean, we already have a system where a John Wick type falls off a building and survives. It's only 1d6 per 10 feet fallen. At level 10, that's only ~35 damage (+/- 11 points for the two-SD range), so as long as a character can take around 46 damage without dying, they can easily survive a 100-foot fall. A Fighter can achieve 47 HP by level 8, even with +0 CON. (10+6x7 = 52) Even the absolute maximum damage dealt by a 100-foot fall, 60 points, can be survived by a +0 CON Fighter by level 10 (10+6x9 = 64). If we go for a +2 CON, that Fighter can survive 90% of 100-foot falls by level 6 (12+8x5 = 52), and absolutely all such falls, even all falls of up to 120 feet, by level 8 (12+8x7=68). All characters can survive a fall of any height, no matter how much damage it deals, as soon as they hit 121 or more HP, since the maximum falling damage is 20d6; a Fighter can hit this with +2 CON by level 14.

So like...if your issue is that John Wick surviving a fall like that is impossible for "mundane" characters to achieve, you already have a problem with 5e. Because that's something that a pure single-classed Champion can achieve easily. A Rogue with +2 CON can do it by level 16. Even a d6 martial, if one existed, could get there with a +2 Con, but it would only happen at level 20 (8+19x6 = 122). So like...as soon as you hit the mid-teens, even with the allegedly oh-so-grounded 5e, we are already getting things that cross the given bright line of unacceptable "supernatural" results coming from absolutely nothing except a lot of martial training, and any character that cares even a little bit about Constitution is likely to get there.

What do you make of this @Scribe?

You can have a game engine where a John Wick type falls off a building and is fine, and a John Wick type falls off a building and is mortally injured, but not at the same time. Unless you're willing to accept level difference being fundamentally different genres within the same setting.

I do think that there is a direction this could be fulfilled by, but I also think some would not necessarily accept it. Specifically, the use of "novice level" rules to stretch out lower levels as long as humanly possible. That would let folks keep their stapled-to-mundanity characters, but at the price of basically saying higher levels aren't for them, which sucks. But outside of that, I agree, I'm not sure there is a way to bridge this gap.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Items in fantasy fiction are often part of a character.

Yes.

The proposal was that they are ALL of the character. Nothing the actual character herself brings actually matters. Only their equipment matters. People gave Iron Man as an example: a person who literally isn't capable of joining for Avengers stuff unless he has his suit.

Take the equipment away and they're literally incapable compared to their peers, whose abilities cannot be robbed this way.

 

[Scribe]

What do you make of this @Scribe?

If the question is do I already have problems with 5e? The answer is yes. Its an abstraction, and some of those abstractions suck pretty bad.

I was thinking on this thread, as I dont really see the value in continuing it, and I thought I would leave it with this.

Thats 500KG, 1100lbs. I'd have to go look at some of the longer clips on this, but I'm pretty sure he almost died from this.

Some interesting feats, and if you have never trained, you just dont know.

Plenty of these.

The human body is amazing, the conditioning various arts put the body through, stuff like what Wim Hof does as well.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-explains-how-iceman-resists-extreme-cold-180969134/

Look at what some of the crazy NBA jumpers can do. Look at the punishment that is dealt with in combat sports, or heck, Rugby/Football.

All of that is 'mundane'.

Now turn the dial JUST A LITTLE for Action Heros, like @Micah Sweet suggests (and I agree) and then add on Magic Items (@I'm A Banana suggests and I agree!) and boom.

A perfectly acceptable mundane martial doing things that 99% of the people on this planet will NEVER do, and likely even with training, could never do.

 

[Hussar]

Yes.

The proposal was that they are ALL of the character. Nothing the actual character herself brings actually matters. Only their equipment matters. People gave Iron Man as an example: a person who literally isn't capable of joining for Avengers stuff unless he has his suit.

Take the equipment away and they're literally incapable compared to their peers, whose abilities cannot be robbed this way.

Again, dude, pick your battles. If we could actually get this much built into the rules, take the win.

 

[Emerikol]

I don't think there is a "win" to be found here. There is only victory over the other half of the player base. Either way some side is unhappy with the outcome.

I didn't buy 5e primarily because they couldn't deliver me a fighter I found acceptable. Though power wasn't the issue. They put a healing surge at the base despite my getting numerous promises they'd not do that sort of thing for every class.